Michigan's Rep. Rogers to leave Congress, start radio show

Saturday

Mar 29, 2014 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2014 at 9:07 AM

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mike Rogers, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who has been a critic of President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul the government's surveillance practices, said yesterday that he will not seek an eighth term.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Rogers, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who has been a critic of President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul the government’s surveillance practices, said yesterday that he will not seek an eighth term.

“I had a career before politics and always planned to have one after,” Rogers, R-Mich., said in a written statement. “The genius of our institutions is they are not dependent on the individual temporary occupants privileged to serve. That is why I have decided not to seek re-election to Congress in 2014.”

Rogers, a 50-year-old former FBI agent, made the announcement during an interview on WJR-AM, a Detroit radio station. He said he plans to start a national radio program focusing on national security, according to the Associated Press.

This week, Obama said he would follow the recommendation of the Justice Department and intelligence officials and discontinue the bulk collection of phone records, a practice revealed by Edward Snowden, the former spy-agency contractor.

Instead, phone records would remain with the phone companies, and intelligence agencies could obtain specific records only with a judge’s permission using a new kind of court order.

Rogers has criticized the plan, suggesting that it would take too long to get a judge’s order. He and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., introduced a bill this week that would allow government analysts to subpoena records without prior judicial review.